EU Parliamentary Research Service calls VPNs "a loophole that needs closing" (opens in new tab)

In case people no longer remember, when China started to require websites to register for a license before be allowed to operate, it was for "protecting the children" too.

This simple policy then goes on to silence most individual publisher(/self-media) and consolidated the industry into the hands of the few, with no opportunity left for smaller entrepreneurs. This is arguably much worse than allowing children to watch porn online, because this will for sure effect people's whole life in a negative way.

Also, if EU really wants "VPN services to be restricted to adults only", they should just fine the children who uses it, or their parent for allowing it to happen. The same way you fine drivers for traffic violation, but not the road.

And if EU still think that's not enough, maybe they should just cut the cable, like what North Korea did.

This title seems misleading.

The EP paper appears to be highlighting the existence of a debate regarding VPN.

Relevant quote:

"Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by children in the first place. The Children's Commissioner for England has called for VPNs to be restricted to adult use only.

While privacy advocates argue that imposing age-verification requirements on VPNs would pose significant risk to anonymity and date protection, child-safety campaigners claim that their widespread use by minors requires a regulatory response. Pornhub and other large pornography platforms have reportedly lost web traffic following the enforcement of age-verification rules in the UK, while VPN apps have reached the top of download rankings."

Of course I'm not saying the EU won't regulate VPNs, but nowhere in this paper is "the EU" stating that VPNs need closing.

I think all the identity verification schemes should start with the beneficial owners of companies. Governments have been lobbied to allow complete anonymity for the wealthy that own businesses doing questionable things while regular people are going to have to show id to buy food.

I guess the basic way to do this is to make VPNs age restricted.

I'm not as bearish on all this as most people here. I don't see much use for age restriction, except maybe keeping preteens off social media. That said, the proposed verification tech is very private, as far as I can tell. My review was cursory, though. Also, each EU member is free to use a different technical solution. Of course they're free to not make age verification obligatory at all. This programme is meant to be a strong default legislative and technical framework: it can't make EU members do something.

The internet is not the nice place it used to be with personal blogs. When we get younger employees they almost cannot work because of their phone addictions.

There is billions of research going into making children addicted through the window of their phone screen to watch apps, and now with AI this is getting even more dangerous.

It's not only children, also many elderly people are targeted. They are very lonely and then develop a Claude addiction.

The people who really want to stop VPNs are commercial streamers, especially for live sports. Regardless of state, or governing party, it always comes back to money.

How come tax loopholes aren't as scrutinized?

Mandatory age verification online is a blight imho. It should be outlawed.

If any EU government people are reading this, I'd like to send you a short message:

Please stop thinking about the kids on the internet. But here's a brief list of things you must work on with higher urgency:

- taxing more large corporations,

- taxing more ultra-rich people,

- funding EU-made (open source) tech and infrastructure,

- let parents spend more time with their kids so they can actually protect their offspring and keep them safe from predators, more than any stupid law you think you can devise can do,

- more trains.

I have a question that's been going through my mind -

Why is age verification connected with identity verification?

I understand why the former is not possible with the latter, but my question is -

Whichever entity is responsible for the verification can just pass on the age verification confirmation without passing through any of the other details, right?

Am I mistaken here? Because if this was possible, I could still go ahead with using the VPN.

People keep looking at the consumer privacy vpns , but there's a huge field of commercial vpn usage for a broad spectrum of tasks in the european union. Point to point tunnels connecting two sites into a single network. Allowing access to (corporate) resources via laptops and mobile devices. Fixing the one way nature of crappy internet that most people are forced to work with these days (or simply never realized), etc etc.

Basically if you want to do any sort of remote work, I'm not saying you're necessarily using one right now, but the odds are good. Possibly the politician's own IT back-end might have ... opinions... on the ability of the executive to overly check the legislative too.

Governments already have everyone's ID, including DOB. They say that the problem is non-adults accessing adult sites and services. So therefore, the sites need to know that users are over 18 (or the selected government age).

There should be a standardized government ID service/API that allows a person to let it disclose their age (or other user selected information) to a requesting site/service. That's all that is needed if the government ID service has appropriate 2FA and security.

Both the request and the response can be appropriately anonymized so that the government doesn't know the site, and the site doesn't know the person's identity.

Why isn't this a thing yet? As far as I know, no one has proposed it.

There was a time that parents control what websites children can access.

Now there is a time politicians control what websites we can access.

Y'all see the plan though, right? Control the internet. Remove e2e encryption. Control/stifle dissent and uprisings.

The plan is to replace the 99% with machines. It doesn't matter to the 1% if you survive their glorious, great filter.

The great filter is billionaires. It's a billionaire control problem, not a superintelligence control problem. You're livestock. There's a better ox and cart that just pulled down the gravel road.

Age restrictions + VPN bans + encryption restrictions + client-side monitoring + restricting general purpose computing.. It's just rapid descent into digital fascism set up by people who have no ability to see how the dots will end up connecting.

So a research arm of the European parliament is "the EU" now?

What annoys me the most is the half of these comments discuss the ‘protecting the children’ agenda when it is clear that it is all smoke and mirrors and it’s just a stepping stone for mass surveillance of adult citizens.

You guys should know better, yet keep falling for the distraction every time. That’s exactly how they win.

VPN usage increased, but how to they draw the conclusion that this is children. I think it's more likely that adults are using VPNs to not have to deal with the ID process. I would do that.

As VPNs usually cost some money, which is already a barrier for minors.

We desperately need a new internet

It's very easy to fall in this trap of "surveillance for the greater good".

It reminds me the Mullvad pub campaign: https://mullvad.net/en/and-then/uk

I think it's more accurate to call the EU Parliament a "loophole that needs closing."

They can't do it.

They need a referendum since it affects people's security and well being.

EU is a tyrrant.

Terrible headline. The EPRS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliamentary_Researc...) said a thing, not the EU.

Also, the EPRS did not argue that they are a loophole that needs closing.

From the actual paper:

> Some argue that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well. In response, some VPN providers argue that they do not share information with third parties and state that their services are not intended for use by children in the first place.

The "some argue" is a link; it turns out that 'some' here is the Children's Commissioner for England, a post with, AIUI, only an advisory role in the UK, and obviously not even that in the EU.

VPNs are essential tools against government persecution. Linking identity to a VPN session under any guise (age verification or otherwise) is something out of the playbook of dictatorial states.

The problem with the EU is people like Kaja Kallis. Imbeciles without intelligence bringing Europe to a downfall. Lobbyists are entrenched in every part of its political system. Every single party is controlled and infiltrated by these groups representing institutions and large capital and most certainly not citizens. It's far worse than the US where there is a much tighter connection between politicians and local states. In the EU there is no transparency. Selection of jobs are done at prestige elitists universities where you opinion is carefully examined before entering the club.

The western great fire wall is reducing its scope..

Maybe the problem is trying to govern a global space with sub-global governments.

Perhaps these legislators are addicted to porn and don't want their children to do to themselves the same they have done. Would explain their obsession and relentlessness to get this done.

It's just a pity they are destroying the internet while doing that. They should be attacking the companies making money from porn instead.

And by the way porn can damage your mind even after 18 so age verification is not a real solution anyway.

Ah yes, the most pressing issue of our times. Mandatory surveillance of every person's activities is a reasonable solution to the critical issue of teenagers watching porn, who totally won't be able to bypass this by... grabbing Dad's phone.

Obviously, it's not about the children. It was never about the children. If I had my way every one of these people would be taken to a gulag, because they are evil, have evil intentions, and blatantly lie to further their evil goals. I am tired of the intolerant being tolerated, and by allowing this to fester we are headed for a much worse totalitarian dystopia.

Some EP commitee writes a report about some UK (not-EU) person stating "VPNs are a loophole that needs closing".

  > A loophole that needs closing
  [Some argue] that this is a loophole in the legislation that needs closing and call for age verification to be required for VPNs as well.

[Some argue] being a link to some UK website

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_AT...

Over my dead internet connection.

VPN for the VPN with a back-up VPN for the VPN's VPN.

Well, we have to remember that the mankind natural state is slavery, a 200-year period of democracy was an anomaly that is now self-correcting.

North Korea calls VPNs “a loophole that needs closing” in age verification push

When the surveillance state wants to ban VPN's, we know their backdoors aren't as effective as they would like.

If my kid can setup a VPN, then he's old enough.

The China gap is going to zero, yet slave masses still sleep...

More bullshit from the gov.

Add better parental controls to devices, if Facebook sends my children porn on a phone that's "underage" than they get a big fat fine.

But I guess then there's no sending my ID to the world, think of the poor advertisers.

Sorry for being blunt but those fuckheads won't stop until they ruined everything. No age verification in my house for computer use.

ὦ Ευρώπη, this would kick off an arms race. μολὼν λαβέ!

The lobbyists are doing what they are paid to do.

People pointed that out quite a while ago already. Age sniffing is a joint attack on the freedoms of people, which explains why these lobbyists also try to abolish VPNs. Their vision for the world wide web is one of authorization. Ultimately they will fail, but a few get rich here in the process.

Welcome to Яussia.

Ugh. Here we go again. Europe’s politicians just cannot stop with wanting to control everyone and everything. It’s as if bureaucracy is the actual goal. Privacy and anonymity should be protected by law. Not violated by law.

It always seems like the people on the right are almost always correct on calling things like this out early..and ignored as a conspiracy theory by the left, until it's far too late.

The EU was known to be a privacy rights nightmare for at least 10 years now.

They EU authorities care for children so much that they haven't noticed almost none are being born anymore in EU.

Tiresome surveillance state push

Yet another «copy protection».

Legislation must call real experts before making any *technical* decisions.

Who are the commies behind this, apart from Ylva Johansson who pushed the former agenda and VdL?

Sounds more like they should have sand-boxed white-listed school networks for known publishers in each age group.

Then leave the rest of the world out of domestic failed parenting nonsense. However, policy would still likely fail given the cruelty youthful ignorance often brings, and persistent 1:100 child psychopath occurrence rates. =3

Here we go again with new restrictions on civil liberties. This is Chat Control all over again.

The EU won't stop until it has access to all your data, all your messages, anything you read, save, send will be scrutinized by the the big great EU and it's little minions.

Hey, at least we get the freedom of movement right?